If high functioning autistics can't speak for low functionin

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...g ones, then how the hell can NTs claim to be able to?

Supporters of hate groups like Autism Speaks defend their crap because they claim that high functioning autistic people cannot speak for the low functioning ones, so actual autistic people like Ari Ne'eman shouldn't have a say in helping autistic people, because they're high functioning.

But surely, by that logic - their own logic - NTs have even less of a right to speak for us, because who has less knowledge of what it must be like to have LFA? Oh yeah, that's right, NTs. They have f**k all experience of autism, and they certainly haven't the faintest clue what it's like to have it, even if their kid does.

It's a basic fact that, because of the diversity of humans, no one person can claim to truly represent a whole group of people. But in this case, who is more qualified to do so - NTs who have no idea what any type of autism is like, or a high functioning autistic person who's on the same spectrum and has the same basic traits (admittedly at a less severe level) and knows what it's like to have the condition?

Don't let their false logic sway to their side, Aspies.

I know two kids 'on the spectrum; as they say, one my own, who is non-verbal, dreamy and gentle, then another kid who talks ninety to the dozen about whales, and runs about pulling kids hair, shouting and going GRRR. It still confuses me a little that they have related conditions. Thats a very different expression of what is supposed to be the same thing, and somehow I'm not sure.
But then everything about Autism has been defined by NT scientists, even you username Asp-Z so they could have it wrong aye?

There's obviously a difference between the two conditions, but the point I was making is that if high functioning autistic people can't have anything to do with it as quite a few supporters of Autism Speaks say, then what hope do NTs have by that logic?

Yep fair point. I have no idea where they're coming from on that one, they seem a befuddled organisation in some ways.

No one speaks for anyone other than themselves, unless a person has given someone permission to on their behalf.

And that's that.

+1

i agree with the op. NT's think they know everything. autism speak what a joke those pricks are.

I actually said that in the OP:

I think it's pretty typical that people find some kind of cause celeb and try and situate themselves as a spokesman in order to gain money and power. It's even better if what ever your representing can't effectively speak for themselves. Of course if another group comes along with a claim to represent said group you have to discredit them. It's happened all through out history.

You have to know way more than two autistic people to be able to understand the similarities and the differences. Not to mention to be able to tell the difference between what's from being autistic and what's personality or other conditions (it sounds as if the other kid may even have Tourette's or ADHD or something else affecting impulse control -- such things are often underdiagnosed in autistic people because everyone assumes it's just the person being autistic or something).

One reason that it's clear a lot of the artificial distinctions (HFA/LFA, autism/AS, etc.) aren't as clear as people like to think they are, is because often kids who are put into one category grow up to be people who would normally be put in another category (and this happens in every possible direction).

There are real differences and similarities between autistic people, but you won't normally find the divisions to be along the lines of the usual stereotypical categories. That's because the usual categories tend to depend on a set number of skills, and the person making the distinction fills in the gaps in their observations as if they know what to put there. With autistic people that is a dangerous assumption to make. There are a few very outward sorts of skills that tend to be used to divide people between high and low functioning. But the divisions are not made based on the people's cognitive or perceptual traits. So you'll get two people lumped together as low functioning because they can't speak, and two other people lumped together as high functioning because they can, when the reality might be that one of the "LFA" people has more in common with one of the "HFA" people than with the other "LFA" person and vice versa.

Over the past... little over a decade, that I've spent knowing a lot of autistic people who weren't relatives, I've found a small number of other autistic people I resonate with. They share the way I perceive the world, we can predict and understand each other's behavior with ease, we have most of the same major difficulties and most of the same major strengths, and we can often spot each other easily because it's like spotting people who make sense in a sea of people who don't. We are clearly all called autistic for the same underlying reasons, which seem to differ from the majority of autistic people in some ways. And we have been considered autistic, AS, PDD-NOS, low-functioning, mid-functioning, and high-functioning (not to mention many of us who have gotten several of these labels). Meanwhile we all experience significant differences from most people of whatever category we are in, while having extreme similarities to a smaller number of people who span every single category. Those of us who've met large numbers of autistic people, have often independently noticed groupings among them that all correlate heavily with each other, but that differ from traditional groupings as well. And these groupings again have much more to do with who people are, than what people appear like to most people.

So, yes, there are many sorts of autistic people. But no, you can't always tell by looking, especially if you have a tendency (which most people seem to) to emphasize a small number of outward traits as really really important in telling these things. And even among autistic people who seem entirely different from each other and aren't within the same 'subtype', there are often a few basic commonalities that a person wouldn't expect.

There are also theories that purport to explain why there is so much variance among autistic people, by saying we start with one of a few more or less similar underlying traits, but various other factors make those traits manifest in totally different ways on the outside. The same way anxiety can make you vomit, or be unable to speak, or pace frenetically, fail to eat, or eat a lot, and you wouldn't automatically associate those three actions unless you knew they could all have one cause. Additionally, I once read a paper where they had had both nonautistic and autistic people rated in all these different areas, with three possible ratings (that this trait was extremely absent, extremely present, or in the middle). And what they found was that autistic people tended towards both extremes, while nonautistic people were in the middle. Hence, people who can't talk at all and people who jabber nonstop (and people who jabber nonstop some of the time and can't talk at all other parts of the time, and people who used to be unable to speak who now jabber nonstop, and people who used to jabber nonstop and are now unable to speak).

So I don't agree with posters who say HFA and LFA are two different things. (This is a bit of a perseveration with me because I have been referred to as both, and I just gave a conference presentation on this subject alongside a scientist and another person who defies categorization as either one -- he is unable to speak, looks extremely unusual, has an extremely high vocabulary, uses an iPod to communicate, and has made films that have been shown at film festivals.) It's not that autistic people don't differ, but that these are not valid ways of categorizing how we differ.

Interesting topic. It cannot be denied that many people do speak for/on behalf of a lot of people on the spectrum, and I believe this comes only naturally for parents of people on the spectrum. I think that most parents of kids on the spectrum get engaged in their kids' challenges, and try to the best of their abilities to understand their kid and to speak for their kid, and stand up for their kid's rights. Parents that are not on the autistic spectrum will of course never know exactly what it is like to actually be on the autistic spectrum, but they will (if they are good and caring parents) try their damndest to get some insight into their kid's world and find out what works best for their kid. And they will get to know their kid pretty well over time, so they know at least how they may speak for one particular autist - their kid. As adults, a lot of people on the spectrum will never need or want someone to speak for them or advocate their rights, but others may want and need that support.

That's the only reasonable post in this thread. You people are always trying to portray parents as 'evils' and as 'conspirators who want to destroy autism" (as if autism is something wonderful to persevere , doh!).

WP is obviously some kind of cult with weird beliefs.

In most cases , put the rare nasty parents aside, no one would care for a kid more than his mother and father. No one.

It would be very ideal if each individual can speaks for himself, but the world isn't ideal.

It's known since the dawn of men , that parents are the most legitimate persons to talk for their children , in case the children aren't yet mentally capable to talk for themselves. You can't change, it's a well profound value in human societies.

If some LFA autie who is obviously suffering physically and mentally and total incapable to talk for himself, then his or her parents are the most legitimate persons to talk for him/her , surely not more legitimate than the autie him/herself , but surely more legitimate than you and Alex.

Read what I said though. I'm not talking about individual parents and their children, I'm talking about massive organisations like Autism Speaks. Do you really think they have our best interests at heart? Of course not, yet they claim to be able to speak for us because their kids are on the spectrum, and that we can't speak for autism because we're not as severe as their precious little kids who they seem to merely use for marketing purposes - it isn't like they let their kids share their views on autism, after all.

And yes, autism is "something wonderful to preserve", as you put it. It is indeed. It's a wide spectrum, but it's produced some amazing people with some amazing abilities. I doubt your computer would exist if autism didn't.

The only people that need representation are those that cannot speak for themselves. Everyone else (on the spectrum or not) need to represent themselves. Trying to speak for a large community as if you represent them all is just arrogant.

Someone needs to go down and tell that to Autism Speaks then, eh?

I doubt telling them would accomplish much, if anything at all. Arrogance blinds those with it into thinking anyone that opposes them are stupid and not worth their time.

I prefer not to waste my time.